All goes onward and outward, nothing
collapses,
And to die is different from what any one
supposed, and luckier.
–Walt
Whitman, “Song of Myself”
There you are again, the sun’s hand
on your shoulder, your hands clasped behind
you in obsequious patience, the scent
of clipped grass, the air intimate
with your ear, chin up, eyes straight,
hidden within the long, still ranks,
beyond the shade of a viewing stand
full of anonymous importance,
witness to another coming
and going with the beating of drums
and a good brass band all done up
in ribbons, the sweet, blue sky
an opening iris leading you out
into the garden of an infinite
silence. Beyond the buzzing of another
day’s words, there is nothing for you,
standing there waiting, except chance
and the universe brushing against your
skin, the random motion of now
miraculously arranging into
a line of iridescent clouds rising
from behind the horizon, and a vision
occurs to you that is only a little like
this:
that, shining cold and high, it is you
who are moving, that beyond,
in the hidden darkness, lie the ruins
of a forever you cannot comprehend,
a vastness of quartz dust scattered
wide under the heel of a boot, maybe
a big dipper promising water enough,
and how, gratefully, you fall asleep.
